An El Dorado County couple who insist they treat marijuana only as a
medicine, but who ran afoul of the federal government's zero tolerance
for the drug, were found guilty Thursday by a Sacramento jury of
conspiring to grow and distribute marijuana.

It took the jury less than three hours on the 10th day of trial to
convict Marion P. "Mollie" Fry, a physician, and her attorney husband,
Dale C. Schafer, of a conspiracy to distribute and grow at least 100
plants.

The jury also found them guilty of manufacturing marijuana. In
Schafer's case, the panel found he had manufactured at least 100
plants.

Fry, 51, and Schafer, 53, are scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 26. They
each face a minimum of five years in prison.

A grand jury indictment, returned more than two years ago, says the
conspiracy continued from Aug. 1, 1999, to the day narcotics officers
raided the couples' Greenwood home and Cool offices -- Sept. 28, 2001.

In his closing argument, Schafer's attorney, J. Tony Serra,
acknowledged his client grew marijuana on his property, but not with
Fry and not 100 plants. The five-year mandatory minimum was triggered
for both defendants by the 100-plant finding.

"He admits he grew," Serra said of his client. "He doesn't expect to
walk out of here without a conviction."

Even though medical necessity is not a defense to federal marijuana
charges, U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. allowed Schafer to
tell the jury much of the back story of the couple's involvement with
the drug.

Since 2000, the Drug Enforcement Administration has embarked on a
muscular campaign against prescription painkiller abuse. It has
utilized undercover investigations, SWAT raids, asset forfeiture, and
high profile trials against "kingpin" doctors. These tactics should be
familiar to anyone who has studied the drug war, but the results are a
shocker. Prescription opioids have actually grown scarce.

To put it bluntly, the DEA has finally found a drug war it can win.

"Opiophobia" is a term that describes doctors' increasing
unwillingness to prescribe opioid painkillers - a class of drugs that
includes Vicodin and OxyContin - and especially high-dose opioids, to
those in pain. This fear is rooted in the DEA's practice of jailing
those doctors it deems are prescribing outside "legitimate medical
standards."

Because pain doesn't show up on an MRI, doctors work together with
their patients to achieve proper dosage. And, thanks to individual
chemistry, pain level, drug tolerance, or typically, all three,
patients vary tremendously in the number of milligrams they require.
But when the only thing doctors know for certain is that prescribing
large amounts of opioids endanger them, it is those suffering the
worst who go undermedicated.

Call it "opiophobia," call it a "chilling effect," or simply, doctors
behaving rationally, the result is the same: massive underprescription
of opioids and radical undertreatment of pain. A Stanford study puts
the number of undermedicated chronic pain patients at about 50
percent. According to the American Pain Society, fewer than 50 percent
of cancer patients receive sufficient pain relief.

Willem Buiter's proposal on these pages last week for the European
Union (and the world) to legalise all drugs, including heroin and
cocaine, is a one-way ticket to destroying millions of children,
increasing violent crime and pushing up healthcare costs.

Like most legalisation buffs, Professor Buiter suggests a regulated
system where access to drugs would be prohibited for minors. Our
experience with laws restricting access by children and adolescents to
tobacco and alcohol makes it clear that keeping legal drugs away from
minors would be an impossible dream. Teen smoking and drinking are at
epidemic levels in the US and across much of the European continent.
In Great Britain, keeping bars open has led to an explosion of
drunkenness among teens so widespread that the government is likely to
return to limited hours for pubs.

Today, the US has some 60m regular smokers, up to 20m alcoholics and
alcohol abusers and about 6m illegal drug addicts. Experts such as
Columbia University's Herbert Kleber believe that, with legalisation,
the number of cocaine addicts alone could leapfrog beyond the number
of alcoholics. The experience of European nations that have tried
various shades of legalisation bears him out.

Switzerland's "Needle Park", touted as a way to restrict a few hundred
heroin users to a small area, turned into a grotesque tourist
attraction of 20,000 heroin addicts and junkies. It had to be closed
before it infected the entire city of Zurich.

Police identified 950 organized crime groups operating in Canada in
2007, up from 800 the year before, according to a report released
Friday.

The report, prepared by Canada's Criminal Intelligence Service,
provides a picture of organized crime in the country based on
information provided by police forces and law enforcement agencies
across the country.

But RCMP Commissioner William Elliott, who chaired the report, said
the findings do not necessarily mean there are more crime groups
operating in Canada - it may just mean that police are getting better
at working together to identify the groups.

"We're encouraged because we know that this year we're in a position
to know more about the number of groups, their activities, and that is
very much helping our enforcement efforts," Elliott told reporters at
a press conference in Calgary.

The report notes that 80 per cent of organized crime groups are
involved in the illegal drug trade, with the most popular drug being
marijuana and the biggest grow operations found in British Columbia,
Ontario and Quebec.

Great news! A drug testing company reports that positive results for
cocaine tests have dropped dramatically this year in Miami, leading
the federal drug czar to say that such numbers prove all those
billions spent in Colombia are going to good use. Interesting how
the drug-testing industry, which needs the drug war to survive, is
stepping up for the drug czar right as details about a new anti-drug
agreement between Mexico and the U.S. are being negotiated.

And since the drug testing industry depends on cannabis being
illegal, it's not surprising that it still is, despite clear
evidence that cannabis is less risky than some legal drugs. The
feds, still targeting state-approved medical cannabis operations,
have subpoenaed information about medical marijuana users in Oregon.
And, a disabled Florida man imprisoned for 25 years on dubious
charges, hopes the governor has some compassion.

Workplace Drug Tests Showed A Big Decline In Cocaine Use Across The
Country And Especially In South Florida.

Cocaine use in South Florida's workforce has experienced a sharp
decline this year compared to 2006, mirroring a national trend that
shows the drug's use at a 10-year low, a leading U.S. testing firm
reports.

"The Miami-Fort Lauderdale area saw a dramatic decline of
approximately 18.1 percent in cocaine positivity rates among
workers," said Barry Sample, the director of science and technology
for employee testing at Quest Diagnostics. "This drop may suggest
that employees in the area either are choosing not to use cocaine or
lack access to the drug."

Nationwide, there was a 16 percent drop in positive workplace drug
tests for cocaine in the first six months of the year, Quest
announced Thursday.

The Lyndhurst, N.J.,-based company compiled its report on 4.4
million drug tests conducted from January through June. The
nationwide rate - -- about one test in every 172 was positive for
cocaine -- is the lowest in the 10 years since Quest began reporting
cocaine in its testing index, a widely used benchmark.

In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area, about one in every 147 drug
tests came back positive for cocaine, based on Quest's data for the
first six months of the year. In 2006, it was one in every 120
tests.

Those tested included people from the general work force as well as
those with jobs that require federally mandated drug tests, like
pilots, truck and bus drivers and nuclear power plant employees.

Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
said cocaine has become harder to find and more expensive in many
cities, although Miami and Fort Lauderdale were not included in a
list of cities he said were experiencing that trend. Cocaine
scarcity and price spikes have been reported in New York,
Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Washington, Walters said.

Emergency-room visits for cocaine-related problems also are down,
Walters said, adding that he has never seen so many cocaine-use
trends "pointing in the same direction."

There is a saying in criminal law: Those who sin while drunk will be
punished while sober. The expression reflects the reality that
alcohol commonly underlies criminal conduct. Approximately 40
percent of fatal traffic crashes involve alcohol, and more than half
of all homicides and incidents of domestic violence are
alcohol-related.

Both liberal and conservative values embrace public safety. But,
notwithstanding our nation's brief experiment with Prohibition, both
groups seem content to continue with the status quo regarding
alcohol. Use of the nation's leading legal intoxicant is at once a
chief contributor to crime and social destruction, and is
simultaneously and routinely glorified as essential to a good time.

Alcohol costs the U.S. economy an estimated $134 billion per year in
lost productivity and earnings through alcohol-related illness,
premature death and crime. Scientific literature suggests that in
approximately 10 percent of the population alcohol use leads to
alcoholism.

How, then, does alcohol continue to escape the country's often
puritanical view of drugs, and does it make sense to consider
reforming drug laws based on an assessment of their dangerousness?
The answer to the first question is a matter of historical and
sociological debate, the answer to the second is clearly yes.

Certainly, there are drugs more dangerous and addictive than
alcohol, including methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. By the same
measure, it is appropriate to recognize marijuana as falling on the
other side of the proverbial ledger. Although it may well be ad

Federal subpoenas seeking medical records of 17 Oregon medical
marijuana patients have growers and users upset and nervous even as
a federal judge considers whether to throw the subpoenas out.

"It's crazy. It's really scary. If they can get my records, they can
get Gov. ( Ted ) Kulongoski's, they can get yours," said Donald
DuPay, a former Portland police officer and 2006 candidate for
Multnomah County sheriff.

DuPay says his records are among those subpoenaed.

A federal grand jury in Yakima, Wash., issued the subpoenas in April
as part of an investigation of some growers in Oregon and
Washington.

The patients are not targets of the grand jury.

A Seattle spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration declined
comment.

The subpoenas were served on the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program,
which issues permits to patients and their authorized growers.

A second subpoena went to The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, a
private Portland clinic where doctors determine whether a patient's
condition would be eased by marijuana.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Pasco County man with multiple sclerosis who
was convicted of drug trafficking for having a large stash of
prescription drugs he said were for pain should receive clemency,
his family said Thursday.

Richard Paey has served four years of a 25-year minimum mandatory
sentence for drug trafficking. The former lawyer and father of three
injured his back in a 1985 car crash and has said he has pain from
that in addition to his multiple sclerosis. He argued in court that
only large amounts of strong narcotics eased that pain.

Prosecutors alleged that using forged prescriptions to obtain so
many pills meant he had to be selling them. Paey said he got undated
prescription forms from a New Jersey doctor because Florida
physicians were reluctant to prescribe drugs in the amounts he
needs.

In a hearing before clemency staff, Paey's wife and children said
the four years he's already served are enough.

"I would like to have him home, so we don't have to spend another 21
and a half years without him," his daughter, Katherine Paey said.
"Because he's already missing ... us growing up. And he's missed
birthdays. And, you know, just us being without him is painful."

Richard Paey, who is now wheelchair-bound, appealed his conviction,
but the Florida Supreme Court in March declined to hear the case.

The clemency staff can recommend his case to Gov. Charlie Crist and
the clemency board, which could then take it up and has the power to
order him released early. A final decision isn't likely for months.

The fight over federal drug money is getting nasty in Indiana, where
the ONDCP is investigating a local High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area program that decided to hold on to the interest accumulated
from federal drug funds. The ONDCP is kind of funny, they don't care
how the police enforce the laws, there's never any criticism about
corruption, but try to keep their compound interest, and watch out!

Also last week: A story out of Canada show's that country's military
does not seem to be immune to drug corruption; a rookie cop makes
all the wrong moves in a drug bust; and serious questions about the
state of democracy in a country which has the highest incarceration
rate in the world.

The state police lieutenant looking into federal criticisms about
finances at the Lake County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
program is challenging federal drug officials' assertions he has
begun a "criminal investigation" into the agency.

In a letter this week to Lake County HIDTA chairman and acting U.S.
Attorney David Capp, Scott Burns, deputy director of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy, said he had "been informed, since our
meeting, that the Indiana State Police have commenced a criminal
investigation related to HIDTA funds."

State Police Lt. David Kirkham insisted Friday no state police
investigation into HIDTA has commenced, criminal or otherwise.

Kirkham said he has begun an "inquiry," at the behest of the HIDTA
board of directors, to look into ONDCP complaints about alleged
financial irregularities at the federally funded regional drug and
gang task force.

"I was asked by the HIDTA board to look into a few things that the
ONDCP brought up, some concerns they had about how the HIDTA was
being run," the lieutenant said.

Kirkham said he was chosen to address the federal criticisms because
he was sitting at the HIDTA board meeting when law enforcement
officials decided to appoint somebody to respond to the ONDCP
complaints.

"They looked around the table and said, 'Do you want to do it?' and
I said 'sure,'" Kirkham said.

HIDTA fiscal officer Linda James, wife of Post-Tribune Editorial
Page Editor Rich James, was transferred Thursday from HIDTA to a job
with the Lake County Sheriff's Department amid mounting criticism
from the ONDCP.

Federal officials reportedly are upset Lake County's HIDTA has made
it a policy to keep interest money raised from federal funds, a
deviation from federal policy.

VICTORIA -- The Canadian navy is reviewing its drug-testing program
after evidence of widespread cocaine use and trafficking aboard
armed military patrol ship HMCS Saskatoon - allegedly involving as
many as a third of the crew - has come to light in a series of
military trials.

Four sailors have been dismissed from the Canadian Forces and three
so far have been convicted of cocaine trafficking, following an
undercover investigation by the Forces.

"There's a goodly level of concern with regard to the circumstances
and a lot of smart people are putting their heads toward whether
there needs to be changes to the random drug-testing program,"
Lieutenant-Commander Gerry Pash, a spokesman for Maritime Forces
Pacific, said yesterday.

Chief Petty Officer Leonard Hearns, who was brought aboard the ship
to try to bring the drug problem under control in January of 2006,
testified that discipline aboard the Saskatoon was non-existent.

"In my 38-year-long career, I have never seen such an appalling
sight," CPO Hearns told the court. "The ship was disorganized, there
was no discipline and no trust among the crew," he said in an
account reported by CBC News and confirmed by a military
spokesperson.

Jason Ennis, 24, was convicted last week in a military court of
trafficking, and has been fined $2,000. Mr. Ennis told the court
between 10 and 12 members of the 31-member crew used cocaine
regularly during the time of the investigation, in January, 2006.

However, he testified he did not use drugs while on the ship, which
is armed with a 40 mm rapid-firing cannon and two .50 calibre
machine guns.

ASPEN - The fate of Moses Greengrass is in the hands of District
Judge James Boyd, who will decide whether his arrest in March was
constitutional.

Greengrass, 26, faces charges of felony possession of more than 25
grams of cocaine and possession with intent to sell. If Boyd deems
the arrest unconstitutional, the prosecution will have no case, and
Greengrass will go free.

Greengrass remains in the Pitkin County Jail for allegedly violating
his parole. Greengrass was released from prison in January after
serving seven years for his role in a 1999 crime spree in Aspen,
which involved local teenagers committing a string of armed
robberies in the upper valley; he would not be released from jail on
the current charges even if he could pay the $25,000 bond.

Boyd heard evidence during a seven-hour hearing Monday on whether to
allow evidence. Boyd said he will issue a written ruling before
Greengrass's arraignment, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10.

At issue is the first few contacts that rookie Aspen police officer
Jeff Fain made with Greengrass on the night of March 22. Though Fain
was in training at the time, he was the one who allegedly saw
Greengrass make a deal and was the arresting officer.

[snip]

During Monday's hearing, Fain admitted making mistakes during the
arrest, such as telling Greengrass, "Sucks to be you," just after
the arrest. Fain said his training officer reprimanded him after the
incident was over.

Fain was still in training at the time of Greengrass' arrest; his
training was extended because he failed some tests, such as knowing
every Aspen street name.

McCarty also brought up Fain's recent car wreck while on the job, in
which Fain was at fault, and said it shows Fain is willing to put
the public at risk to make a bust.

How can you tell when a democracy is dead? When concentration camps
spring up and everyone shivers in fear? Or is it when concentration
camps spring up and no one shivers in fear because everyone knows
they're not for "people like us" ( in Woody Allen's marvelous phrase
) but for the others, the troublemakers, the ones you can tell are
guilty merely by the color of their skin, the shape of their nose or
their social class?

Questions like these are unavoidable in the face of America's
homegrown gulag archipelago, a vast network of jails, prisons and
"supermax" tombs for the living dead that, without anyone quite
noticing, has metastasized into the largest detention system in the
advanced industrial world.

The proportion of the U.S. population languishing in such facilities
now stands at 737 per 100,000, the highest rate on earth and some
five to twelve times that of Britain, France and other Western
European countries or Japan. With 5 percent of the world's
population, the United States has close to a quarter of the world's
prisoners, which, curiously enough, is the same as its annual
contribution to global warming.

With 2.2 million people behind bars and another 5 million on
probation or parole, it has approximately 3.2 percent of the adult
population under some form of criminal-justice supervision, which is
to say one person in thirty-two. For African-Americans, the numbers
are even more astonishing. By the mid-1990s, 7 percent of black
males were behind bars, while the rate of imprisonment for black
males between the ages of 25 and 29 now stands at one in eight.

While conservatives have spent the past three or four decades
bemoaning the growth of single-parent families, there is a very
simple reason some 1.5 million American children are fatherless or (
less often ) motherless: Their parents are locked up. Because they
are confined for the most part in distant rural prisons, moreover,
only about one child in five gets to visit them as often as once a
month.

What's that you say? Who cares whether a bunch of "rapists,
murderers, robbers, and even terrorists and spies," as Republican
Senator Mitch McConnell once characterized America's prison
population, get to see their kids? In fact, surprisingly few
denizens of the American gulag have been sent away for violent
crimes.

In 2002 just 19 percent of the felony sentences handed down at the
state level were for violent offenses, and of those only about 5
percent were for murder.

The Stranger article reminds us that this is the weekend of the
world's largest hempfest. It is nice to see so many DrugSense
supporters on the speaker's list - to include board members Don
Wirtshafter, Chairman of the Board, and Nora Callahan, Financial
Officer, as well as staff member Philippe Lucas, Director of
Communications. However, the overall premise of the article reads
more like a personal opinion rather than anything based on real
studies.

It is amazing that a decade after voters created California law
police officers within the state still get away with violating their
oath of office and Article 3, Section 3.5 of the California
Constitution http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_3

While the New Mexico medicinal marijuana law runs into some
difficulties it is good to see efforts in another state, Kansas, to
protect patients.

Finally, the DEA claims that it is the fault of Congress that
industrial hemp is not legal for farmers to grow in the United
States. But perhaps it is really the willful misinterpretation of
the law by DEA bureaucrats and agents. After all, they think they
are smarter than medical doctors, too.

With all this social pressure on women not to be stoners, the gender
divide is not surprising. Every aspect of getting stoned is banned
from women's psyches--relaxing, eating, and feeling pleasure. It's
reminiscent of old-school ideas about female sexuality--orgasms
aren't ladylike so why would women want to have them?

But women should ignore that sexist Hempfest poster, and, like
Fiona, hit Hempfest this weekend. (It's August 18 and 19 at Myrtle
Edwards Park with five stages of music and speakers and brownie
vendors galore.) They should also feel free to upend stereotypes all
year long and, like Fiona, put their feet up after work and take a
long toke from a gravity bong.

For more information about Seattle Hempfest and a full schedule of
musicians and speakers go to www.hempfest.org.

Some on the Council Say the Action Undermines a State Law Allowing
the Medical Marijuana Sales.

Los Angeles police said Wednesday that they will continue to
participate in federal raids on local medical marijuana dispensaries
against the wishes of some members of the City Council.

A continuing conflict between federal and state drug laws, they
said, has created a stalemate that doesn't appear likely to soon
end.

Officials with the Los Angeles Police Department contend that it's
their job to help enforce the federal law. Council members argue
that police raids, at best, send a mixed message about the city's
support for the state law passed in 1996 to permit the use of
marijuana for prescribed medical purposes.

New Mexico could have been the first state in the nation to build a
centralized production and distribution system for medical
marijuana, but the Health Department doesn't want to take the risk
of butting up against federal law.

Upon advice from Attorney General Gary King, Health Secretary Dr.
Alfredo Vigil said the second phase of the new state law that would
have made that happen won't be pursued.

"The Department of Health will not subject its employees to
potential federal prosecution, and therefore will not distribute or
produce medical marijuana," Vigil said in a written statement
Wednesday.

That decision appears to leave patients who participate in the
state's Medical Cannabis Program with three options: grow their own
marijuana plants; purchase bags of pot on the black market; or get a
prescription for the legal, synthetic form of tetrahydrocannabinol,
one of 400 chemicals in the marijuana plant.

But Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico -
a group that lobbied for the law - insists there are other
solutions, if only King would provide "more meaningful" legal
direction.

Former Attorney General Robert Stephan plans to speak out Friday
about what he believes is the need to legalize the medical
consumption of marijuana in Kansas.

The state's chief law enforcement officer from 1979 to 1995 will
participate in a news conference in the Statehouse hosted by Kansas
Compassionate Care Coalition, which seeks legal protection for
patients who use marijuana as part of a treatment program and for
physicians who recommend the drug to patients.

Laura Green, director of the coalition, said in an interview Tuesday
that laws relating to medicinal use of marijuana are on the books in
more than 30 states. A dozen states rigidly shield patients from
prosecution when consuming cannabis for medical purposes.

The DEA's position on hemp is pretty clear: "The law is the law is
the law," says Garrison Courtney, who is the lead spokesman for the
DEA's public information office. "To get hemp, you have to grow
marijuana."

Don't blame the DEA, he says, if the law seems contradictory:
"That's something that Congress put together, and really, the beef
should be with them, not us."

Where has it been found that prohibition "can defeat the cartels,"
and when has prohibition won "the battle"? Apparently, politicians
have discovered, that place is the U.S. and Mexico. There, launching
a "courageous new offensive" (that can really "fight drug sales")
one may hope to rescue a country "from a criminal drug machine" --
"the deadly cartels Mexico is fighting." On the heels of Plan
Colombia (a multi-billion dollar boondoggle to prop up a right-wing
Colombian regime and spray plant killer on rainforests in hopes of
killing coca), which oversaw a fall in cocaine prices, a new "Plan
Mexico" is set to repeat Plan Colombia's dubious results. A piece in
the Washington Post this week ("It's Our Drug War, Too"), lays out
official visions of battle, offensive, and defeat of the
cartel-enemy dancing in the head of former Bush administration
functionary Roger F. Noriega.

In Vancouver, Canada, official statistics this week were published
which say that drug overdose deaths are increasing there. What might
help lower that number? More supervised injection sites. "If
anything, it's an argument for more supervised injection places,"
said Donald MacPherson, a drug policy coordinator in the city. Mayor
Alan Lowe of Victoria, Canada, suggests that Vancouver could use
another five supervised injection centers over the current one
center, to handle the load. Lowe will ask Health Canada for approval
for three sites in the city of Victoria.

If you're a bureaucrat, your biggest "risk" is that your
department's budget will be cut next fiscal year. Likewise, when the
Canadian government asked a private firm to conduct a review of drug
policy, answers that must be music to a bureaucrats's ears came
forth. You see (said the report) what the government needs is...
more. More government, that is. With more government ("hire, train
and maintain sufficient staff") and less of course, of that
"insufficient funding" stuff, Canada's war on drugs can correctly
face illicit-drug challenges. Predictably, the report led at least
one "formal department request for more money."

And from Holland this week, there's talk of tightening up magic
mushroom sales after a 17-year-old tourist from France supposedly
ate some and fell to her death. To provide political cover for
banning the mushrooms, Dutch Health Minister Ab Klink ordered a
study on the risks of the psychedelic fungi, which are currently
sold over-the-counter with few restrictions in the Netherlands.

U.S. and Mexican authorities are nearing agreement on an aid package
to support Mexico's courageous new offensive against the deadly drug
syndicates that threaten both our nations. The stakes are high for the
United States: We depend on Mexico as a cooperative neighbor and trade
partner, and most of the marijuana and as much as 90 percent of the
cocaine consumed in this country pours over our southern border. If
Mexico cannot make significant headway against the bloodthirsty
cartels, our security and our people will suffer the consequences.

[snip]

Conceding the corruption or weakness of some local police forces,
Calderon has deployed 20,000 Mexican soldiers to help match the
firepower of murderous drug gangs.

[snip]

Certain elements of such a partnership are uncontroversial and are
likely to win universal support. Surveillance and eavesdropping
equipment, radar for aerial interdiction, aircraft for drug-tracking
teams and assorted special training are reportedly already part of the
agreement. Under the administration of Vicente Fox the two governments
began working together, with U.S. aid directed at database
improvements, law enforcement training and material support for
border-crossing posts. Increased coordination in these areas should be
part of the new agreement.

[snip]

Felipe Calderon has already demonstrated his commitment to rescuing
his country from a criminal drug machine, and he welcomes increased
U.S. support. There are few challenges more grave than those posed by
the deadly cartels Mexico is fighting. And there are few opportunities
more precious than helping our Mexican friends win the battle on our
doorstep.

36 people dead in first six months of 2007 compared to 26 for same
period last year

Drug overdose deaths in Vancouver and the rest of the province have
increased over last year, according to preliminary statistics from
the B.C. Coroners Service.

[snip]

The statistics suggested to the city's drug policy coordinator,
Donald MacPherson, that an increase in deaths is alarming and that
more than one supervised injection site is needed in Vancouver.

"For a city our size, we should be much lower than [the recent
statistics]," MacPherson told the Courier. "If anything, it's an
argument for more supervised injection places."

Insite on East Hastings is North America's only legal supervised
injection site. It opened in September 2003. No one has died of an
overdose at the site.

[snip]

Several studies conducted by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in
HIV/AIDS indicate that users of Insite contact drug counsellors and
are referred to treatment.

The facility has also helped reduce the incidents of needle sharing
among addicts, reducing the spread of diseases. The injection site
averages more than 600 injections per day.

[snip]

Two weeks ago, Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe told the Courier that
Vancouver could use another five supervised injection sites.
Victoria will apply this year to Health Canada to get approval for
three sites.

Lowe said having Sullivan as an ally would be an asset when Victoria
sends its proposal to Health Canada. Sullivan has called the city's
injection site a temporary measure, although he said he supports
extending its operating agreement with the federal government.

Insufficient Funding And Concerns About The Harper Government's
Commitment Top The List Of Issues.

OTTAWA -- Canada's war on drugs is facing a number of challenges,
including insufficient funding and concerns about a Conservative
government's commitment to some aspects of the national program, a
government-commissioned evaluation reports.

The review of Canada's Drug Strategy highlights a number of "risks"
since the program was renewed in 2003, beginning with an inability
to hire, train and maintain sufficient staff amidst a proliferation
of clandestine labs and grow-ops and other pressures.

According to the report, completed last October but only recently
made public, the challenges led to at least one formal department
request for more money.

[snip]

"Conservative governments are sometimes associated with a preference
for enforcement-based measures rather than, for example, treatment
and harm reduction," the evaluation states.

"There had been proposed reforms to cannabis legislation
(decriminalization), but these have since fallen by the wayside
since the new government took over."

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- The famously liberal Netherlands has been
swinging toward the right, cracking down on immigration, religious
freedoms and the freewheeling red light district. The next possible
target? Magic mushrooms.

The death of a 17-year-old French girl, who jumped from a building
after eating psychedelic mushrooms while on a school visit, has
ignited a campaign to ban the fungi -- sold legally at smartshops as
long as they're fresh.

Regulation of mushrooms is even less stringent than Holland's
famously loose laws on marijuana, which is illegal but tolerated in
"coffee shops" that are a major tourist attraction.

Gaelle Caroff's parents blamed their daughter's death in March on
hallucinations brought on by the mushrooms, although the teenager
had suffered from psychiatric problems in the past. Photographs of
her beautiful, youthful face have been splashed across newspapers
around the country.

In May, Health Minister Ab Klink ordered the national health
institute to perform a new study on the risks of mushrooms.
Depending on the conclusions, which are due next month, he said he
would either recommend that mushroom sales be limited to those over
18 or impose a total ban.

[snip]

Dutch government data suggest most mushrooms sold in smartshops are
eaten by tourists. Since Caroff's death, other dramatic stories
involving foreigners have been reported in the Dutch press:

[snip]

A majority of parties in parliament ranging from centrist to far
right have demanded the hallucinogenic mushrooms be outlawed.

If the government does ban mushrooms, it will be in keeping with
conservative trends that have been sweeping the country in recent
years. Since 2001, Muslim immigrants have been under pressure to
learn Dutch and integrate, and there have been calls by some to ban
Islamic schools and radical mosques.

The Outreach Coordinator assists with online outreach, including
utilizing blogs, online social networking sites, and online
advertising. Candidates should be skilled in effectively exploiting
all forms of digital technology and media to attract new supporters
and should have knowledge of Web 2.0 technologies and trends (blogs,
RSS, video sharing technology, tags, etc.) and familiarity with
online social networking.

In the final paragraph of his featured opinion essay, Tom Elias
essentially said that "if marijuana is truly destructive," why not
focus anti-marijuana police and adjudication monies and forces
against large-scale commercial growers of cannabis "whose sales have
truly destructive potential." Respectfully however, the problem with
what he said is that marijuana is NOT truly destructive. On the
other hand, the federal anti-marijuana laws are destructive, immoral
and in violation of the supreme law of the land that is the U.S.
Constitution.

The marijuana prohibition is immoral and destructive because
destructive punishments initiated by police for its use almost never
bear a relation to a crime itself. That is to say that the act of
consuming cannabis is not an immoral, dangerous or a destructive
act. Conversely, consuming natural cannabis is much safer and
healthier than consuming alcohol, tobacco, many foods and drinks and
many-to-most pharmaceutical "drugs." Poisonous house-cleaning
products are available for purchase every day by the endless gallon,
but mostly healthy cannabis is banned from purchase, or even
cultivation. Tellingly, while marijuana use is not destructive, the
fines, torments, adulterations, disenfranchisements and murders
meted out for its acquisition are immoral and highly destructive.

The marijuana prohibition is, technically, unconstitutional. The
reason for this is that the Constitution enumerates the limits it
places on the federal government in relation to the individual
states and the citizenry. The U.S. Constitution does not give the
federal government the right or power to prohibit the personal
consumption of anything at all. That the so-called "Supreme Court"
has collectively enabled this unconstitutionality and immorality,
says much more about a lack of wisdom or humanity among its
"justices" than it does about the utility of cannabis. By extending
federal authority onto matters of state and personal sovereignty,
both Congress and the Supreme Court have, technically, broken our
peoples' supreme law.

Moral democracies such as ours are supposed to have tolerant
governments that are responsive to the will of the people, and the
people have made it clear that we do not want cannabis prohibition
as a matter of law or policy, unconstitutional or labeled otherwise.

When New Mexico passed their medical marijuana law that required the
state to supply patients with marijuana, that turned some heads --
surely this was an interesting end run around the approach of
busting medical marijuana dispensaries that the DEA uses in
California. How would the DEA bust a state?

The problem, unfortunately, is that folks figured out that the DEA
might just go after the individual state employees who are complying
with state law and, in the process, violating federal law.

So the state of New Mexico has decided not to comply with state law
( see http://tinyurl.com/yoj84u ) [thanks, Wayne] so as not to force
state employees to be put at risk. And to an extent, I can understand
the stated sentiment (although it certainly would be an interesting
court case).

What I can't help wondering, however, is how hard the state is
trying. Have they merely come up with an excuse to give up? Don't
they have a responsibility to continue to attempt to find a way to
make state law work?

And this got me thinking about a fascinating post by Alex at Drug
Law Blog: "Daily News on LAPD Involvement in Dispensary Raids" ( see
http://druglaw.typepad.com/drug_law_blog/2007/08/daily-news-on-l.html
). The question there is whether members of the LAPD are actually
helping the DEA bust dispensaries that are legal under state law,
and what that says about the LAPD. They claim to just be there to
maintain order, but what about their responsibility to the law?

I'm not saying that the LAPD should defy the DEA. No gunfights in
the street between state and federal cops just yet. Federal law
supersedes state law. But that doesn't mean that the LAPD needs
to... assist.

As a Superior Court Judge recently noted: "It is up to the federal
government to enforce its laws. Indeed, the Tenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution prohibits the federal government from
impressing 'into its service -- and at no cost to itself -- the
police officers of the 50 States." ( see
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2007/07/10.html#a2349)

So what should the LAPD do? If they really believed in their
responsibility to the people, the law, and the state, then they
would protect those all the way up to the point where federal law
specifically took over, and then merely step out of the way. I would
position police officers to protect marijuana dispensaries in the
state, with instructions to step aside for the DEA only if and when
the police and California attorney general were completely satisfied
with the legal paperwork spelling out the DEA's jurisdiction in that
particular raid and the specific provisions of federal law that
trumped state law (and the DEA might have to wait for an hour or two
while the proper state officials were brought in to inspect such
documents).

Now that would be something to see. And the people of California
should demand that of their police departments.

Pete Guither is the author of Drug WarRant - www.drugwarrant.com - a
weblog at the front lines of the drug war, where this piece was
first presented.

Policy and Law Enforcement/Prison content selection and analysis by
Stephen Young (steve@drugsense.org), Cannabis/Hemp content selection
and analysis by Richard Lake (rlake@drugsense.org), International
content selection and analysis by Doug Snead (doug@drugsense.org),
This Just In selection, Hot Off The Net selection and Layout by Matt
Elrod (webmaster@drugsense.org). Analysis comments represent the
personal views of editors, not necessarily the views of DrugSense.

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